In the recent defacement of the NY Times business site, the defacer from
"Sm0ked Crew" included an apology to Attrition that has resulted in a
flood of mail to Attrition staff asking for clarification.

Attrition staff frequently endures abuse from script-kiddy groups who are
under the misguided belief that we work for them. We have been harassed
and chastised if we are slow in posting a defacement or if we happen to
miss one. We have to remind these kids that our work for Attrition is done
in our spare time and without compensation. Our "Going Postal" section has
numerous examples of this, and our typical responses:

When some members of Sm0ked Crew took a simliar attitude, we made it
painfully clear that we are a non-profit Web site, managed and maintained
in the spare time of the participating staff. The Sm0ked Crew members were
very apologetic and expressed appreciation for the voluntary work done by
Attrition staff.

Unfortunatly, they were not content with expressing their sentiments
privately and chose to make a public statement on their next defacement -
which happened to be the NY Times business section. We had no knowledge
that they planned to deface the site or make such a statement. We
certainly would have discouraged them from both actions. Attrition has a
legal obligation to inform law enforcement if we have prior knowledge of a
crime and to comply with federal subpoenas. We first knew about the
defacement when we received several emails to "hacked@attrition.org" after
it occurred. (See the Attrition "Notes" section for details on how we are
informed of defacements:

While we appreciate that Sm0ked Crew had the best of intentions in
greeting us, we would like to emphasize that such public statements are
unnecessary and unwelcome. Unfortunatly, we have no control over the
actions of others. The Attrition mirror is a news source for web
defacements. We want and strive for a neutral position in all things
related to performing the duties required to run the mirror.